View full sizeEVAN VUCCI, The Associated PressRepublican presidential candidate former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, right, talks with Sen. Patrick Toomey, R-Pa., during a stop at Wawa gas station in in Quakertown, Saturday.

Appearing before a crowd estimated to exceed 1,000 people in the historic Cornwall Iron Furnace courtyard, Romney not only addressed reports that Pennsylvania was not a campaign priority, but boasted that he planned to claim the state last won by a Republican in 1988.

“I’ve got news for you. I’m going to win Pennsylvania,” he said to rapturous applause.

Later, in an exclusive interview with The Patriot-News, the former Massachusetts governor reiterated his interest in the Keystone State, dismissing reports that he had been surprised at state GOP Chairman Rob Gleason’s assertion that Gleason could carry the state for him.

“I’m glad to hear he’s going to win it for me, but I’m planning on winning it for myself,” he said.

Romney also expressed positions clearly aimed at appealing to state residents.

A top priority would be repairing the nation’s roads and bridges, he said. It’s a popular, albeit sensitive, notion in Pennsylvania, with Gov. Tom Corbett resisting any taxes despite many Republican lawmakers clamoring for a transportation bill.

Suggesting a solution might be found in public-private partnerships, Romney said the need was made even more apparent to him as he traveled poor Pennsylvania roads.

“I was on the Pennsylvania Turnpike — a lot of chops, if you will, in the roadway — and I think we’re going to have to have a very dramatic increase in infrastructure investment in this country.”

He was also tuned into an area of contention between Obama and many Pennsylvania Democrats: energy. Romney expressed common ground with many prominent Pennsylvanians in the president’s own party who argue for greater investment in the fossil fuels recently discovered in the state.

“One of the things that will drive an extraordinary resurgence of the American economy is taking advantage of our coal and gas and oil resources,” he said. “Horizontal drilling technology and fracking is now in abundance. It is very cheap.

“And if we take advantage of those resources, what you’re going to find is not only creating jobs in the energy sector, but manufacturing is going to come back,” he said.

Pa. in play?

Romney was joined Saturday in Cornwall by Corbett, U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., and a former nomination rival who is now a possible running mate: Tim Pawlenty, former governor of Minnesota.

Noticeably absent from the three visits was Pennsylvania’s former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, who had been dismissive of Romney’s conservative credentials when the two men vied for the Republican nomination.

But having won enough delegates to secure the nomination, Romney has set his sights on Obama and the states that will deliver the presidency.

Though reports suggest the state is not a top priority for Romney, influential state Republicans said recently narrowed poll numbers have emboldened the Romney campaign to make Obama defend the state he carried by 10 points in 2008.

“Make no mistake,” one Romney campaign aide said Saturday. “We’ll be back.”

‘We dislike what he’s done’

When Romney arrived at the iron furnace as part of a daylong, three-stop tour of the commonwealth, enthusiastic Pennsylvanians that filed in to see him seemed to have some of their gusto sapped as temperatures soared and the sun glared down upon them.

Even Lt. Gov. Jim Cawley, serving as hype man for the day, struggled to rev the crowd.

But when Romney rolled into the courtyard at 5:15 on the dot, the crowd came to life as he made his case to replace Obama.

“His policies have not helped America get working again,” Romney said of the president. “He tries to say, ‘Just give my policies some time.’ Well let me tell you, you’ve had 3½ years of that.”

Romney also made light of Obama’s 2008 campaign theme, “Hope and Change.”

“Now he’s hoping to change the subject,” he said of Obama. “He doesn’t want you to be thinking about his record, but we are thinking about his record. Whether you think he’s a nice guy or don’t think he’s a nice guy, one thing you know is he’s been a disappointment. He hasn’t gotten this economy going the way he said he would.”

He added later: “We don’t dislike him. We just dislike what he’s done.”

The crowd was particularly responsive to Romney when he lambasted the expansion of the national debt under Obama.

“It’s immoral in my view for my generation to pass onto these kids the burdens of my generation,” he said. “I think it’s wrong. It’s got to stop, and if I’m president of the United States, I will get us on track to have a balanced budget.”

Obama backers gather

Democrats rallied earlier outside of the campaign stop.

State Rep. Eugene DePasquale, D-York County, Manan Trivendi, a Democrat running in the 6th Congressional District, and Pennsylvania State Education Association Vice President Jerry Oleksiak spoke to reporters as about a dozen Obama backers chanted the president’s name, and an airplane with a “Romney for president — 2012” banner circled overhead.

The local Obama surrogates said Romney was running away from his record in Massachusetts and hammered him for vilifying firefighters, police officers and teachers as a root cause of the nation’s problems.

“Look at our schools now,” Oleksiak said. “We were making great progress, and that progress is going to grind to a halt if we elect Mitt Romney.”

DePasquale argued that the same criticisms Romney levels at Obama could be directed at him.

“While he is very critical of President Obama on the campaign trail, he really doesn’t talk about his record as Massachusetts governor,” he said, noting a poor job growth record and increased state debt. “So we think it’s important that if he’s not going to [talk about his record], we are going to.”

Before arriving at the Lebanon County rally, Romney visited Bucks and Carbon counties, but abruptly diverted his planned stop at a Quakertown Wawa to another area service station. The campaign said it made the change because Ed Rendell, the former state governor and Democratic National Committee chairman, would be at the planned stop.

“We had one of our top surrogates in Gov. Rendell at the Wawa, and we figured he had it covered,” the campaign said in a statement.

Though designated as a national Obama surrogate, Rendell has occasionally been critical of the president’s campaign tactics.

Romney’s five-day swing-state tour will continue in Ohio, Iowa and Wisconsin and finish Tuesday in Michigan.

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